On a Los Alamitos ball field on a recent Tuesday, fifth-grade pitcher Nathan Berger of the Mariners reached back and fired a fastball for a strike to batter AJ Crook of the Yankees.
But armed with an Easton Triple7 alloy bat, AJ won the battle between the St. Hedwig Pony League players by smacking a hard ground ball to the shortstop, scoring the runner on third.
AJ and thousands of other youth baseball and softball players are using similar bats to make a winner out of Easton Sports Inc. of Van Nuys, which makes about one of every two baseball bats sold in America.
AJ's Triple 7 bat isn't anything like the $12 wooden bat his father used a generation earlier. It's lighter, weighing barely 20 ounces, and has a wider barrel, creating a bigger hitting surface. AJ can whip the 29-inch bat at a faster speed and hit the ball harder than he would with a wooden bat, or even an earlier aluminum model.
But here's the number Easton really likes. The Triple 7 lists for $150 at batting cages and specialty retailers such as Sport Chalet Inc. stores and represents one of the few bright spots for a baseball equipment business that's suffering from a dearth of players.
Easton has built on the metallurgy skills first developed by a sister company that makes aluminum archery arrows to become the nation's leading maker of high-profit, premium bats.
The privately held company, along with the No. 2 player in the bat business, Hillerich & Bradsby Co., owner of the Louisville Slugger brand, is responsible for much of the growth in the baseball equipment business in recent years.
Wholesale shipments by U.S. manufacturers of baseball and softball equipment grew 26% to $440 million from 1995 to 2000, the latest year reported by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Assn. Bat sales accounted for the majority of that gain. By 2000, the bat business accounted for 37% of all baseball equipment sales, up from 25% five years earlier.
During this period, the cost of a premium bat doubled and in some cases tripled to $150 to $250--the price of the bats AJ and his teammates use. His mother, Janet Crook, said she cringed before paying $150 for a bat for a youngster. But she noticed AJ's hitting improved after he borrowed a similar bat from a friend last summer.
Now, she said, it's not unusual to see $1,000 worth of bats dangling from the dugout racks on the St. Hedwig Catholic School ball field where the Yankees, Mariners and other youth teams from the area play.
